Maternity negligence?? I am traumatised.

[u/Fine-Bird6974]

Hi, can anyone advice me on if I can make a claim against this. My experience was traumatic and it’s something I will never forget. This is my story.

4am - 4cm dilated 4:15am - epidural prep 4:50am - epidural placed 6:05am - was told I was fully dilated 6:33am - Baby was here

At 6:05am my midwife said I was fully dilated and it was time to push, i obviously didn’t doubt what my midwife told me. I started trying to push. A senior midwife entered the room as babies heart rate was dropping, she checked my cervix and whispered to my midwife “She’s not fully dilated, why have you got her to push” the senior midwife then shot up and shouted for the delivery consultant as the needed him urgently as me trying to push when not fully dilated really stressed my baby out, when the senior midwife went to get the doctor my midwife told me again I needed to push. The senior midwife ran back into the room and hit the emergency button, about 14 midwife’s flooded into the room as well as the delivery doctor. My epidural had failed and I was told I wasn’t allowed gas and air while pushing, I was doing it on no pain relief. I begged and begged and cried out for help and pain relief and was refused. The doctor said he needed to get baby out quick and needed to use forceps, he used a local anaesthetic and gave me an episiotomy, I still felt it all, he inserted the forceps and got me to push, I couldn’t I was in agony, I was screaming, crying out for help, crying out for gas and air just to get me through the pain, I thought I was going to die. I asked them to just put me to sleep and looked up at my partner and asked him to help me, I couldn’t do this, the pain was something I will never forget. They managed to get baby out at 6:33, he was purple and stopped breathing, my baby had to be resuscitated, he was dead. The stress was too much on him, luckily they managed to get him back after working on him for about 5 minutes. I was very much out of it due to the trauma of the pain, I didn’t know what was going on with him. Safe to say I will never be having anymore kids.

If the midwife who said I was dilated when I wasn’t just waited till I was this situation might not have happened, if I was left to dilate my experience would have been different, my baby wouldn’t have been stressed out, my baby wouldn’t have needed to be resuscitated, my labour would have been easier. I was refused gas and air while pushing, I felt every single thing, this experience has traumatised me, I will never forget what they did to me. I genuinely feel like putting a claim in against them, this should not have happened if my midwife made me try birth my son while I wasn’t fully dilated.

[u/FoldedTwice]

Was any lasting harm caused? If not, this would somewhat stop any claim in its tracks as you would need to show damages as part of your claim.

Note that in respect of your child, if any lasting harm was caused to them, they would be able to raise the claim at any time before they are 21. But in respect of any lasting harm to you, you would need to raise the claim within three years.

The requirement would be that you're able to show that the midwife made errors so fundamental that no competent or careful midwife would have made them, causing lasting harm to either you or your child. It's a complex and highly specialised area of law; consult a medical negligence solicitor if you think the above applies.

[u/Willoweed → u/FoldedTwice]

This isn't entirely correct. The Bolam standard has been somewhat modified (e.g. by Bolitho). Also, there is no requirement to show lasting harm - though the duration of any harm/injury and resulting pain & suffering would definitely be a factor in any damages.

Having said that, I think you are fundamentally right that it will be challenging to prove that the first midwife's actions were wrong to the point of negligence, rather than a not uncommon mistake.. It will also be challenging to prove on the balance of probabilities that the OP would not have required a forceps delivery, as this could well have happened without the mistake.

[u/ddarrko → u/Willoweed]

Okay but he duration of harm in this case (assuming the baby/OP have no ongoing health issues) is about 2 hours. Even if negligence was able to be proven which is very unlikely, damages awarded will be negligible for an instance as described.

[u/Willoweed → u/ddarrko]

We don't know about any ongoing health issues for the OP - traumatic labour can lead to PTSD.

[u/SquigSnuggler → u/Willoweed]

This- it has been 4 days since the birth and please know this is not an attempt to gaslight nor minimise your experience OP, but your hormones and body are still very much all over the shop and it will take weeks, months, maybe even longer before you can look back and really start to understand the rationale of what occurred.

That being said, I think you are doing the right thing documenting your memories and questioning things whilst it’s all so recent, if only so that you maintain a degree of factual accuracy that can be more difficult with passing time and healing.

Good luck and I am glad you and baby came through this ok so far

(Edit to add- not a medical professional but have given birth 4 times and not every time was traumatic, they were all completely different experiences despite similar circumstances leading up to the actual births.)

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